


Abrade

by inRemote



Series: Edeleth Week 2019 [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 21:09:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20896151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inRemote/pseuds/inRemote
Summary: Not all stains wash away so easily.





	Abrade

**Author's Note:**

> prompt was "cleanliness"

End the war, and you can focus on what comes after.

End the war, and the suffering stops.

End the war, and you will know peace.

If only it were so _ easy. _

Edelgard believed in ghosts. Not spirits, disembodied souls or revenants. Edelgard hadseen many things in her life, but she’d never seen the dead linger on in the world. Byleth was perhaps the one exception, but those were different circumstances. No, the ghosts that Edelgard believed in are not the stuff of horror stories, but they were the stuff of nightmares.

Ghosts existed in her mind. Ghosts were copies of the dead, constructs created by her guilt and despair to ensure that the legacy of her suffering always remained keen, remained fresh. Edelgard had always had nightmares. The ghosts of her siblings, murdered to become numbers in a formula of which she was the answer, had been her bedmates for as long as she could recall.

But it was the ghosts she had created herself that visited her during the day.

The faces of people whose lives she had taken, or the ones she had sent to her death, would find her in moments of stillness, when her thoughts were quiet, when there was space to be filled. There were many, but one in particular was a frequent guest.

Dimitri would likely have revelled in the fact he would continue to haunt Edelgard long after he passed. Edelgard’s mind had created a vengeful spirit fitting of his unfathomable hatred of her. He arrived in moments where she risked feeling joy, seething, to remind her of what that joy had cost. To remind her that her happiness had been bought with the blood of countless others. 

It had been an easy decision at the time, perhaps. Edelgard had known that Dimitri could not be reasoned with, had she not? He was a victim of Thales’ designs. Dead before she met him on the field. To kill his body had been a mercy to his soul. 

She had believed that, at the time. But Byleth hadn’t. And Byleth was so _ good. _ Who was she to disagree with her?

They had both bathed in their share of blood over the war. Each of them worth a thousand soldiers. They were no mere veterans, with no more kills than they could count on their hands. They had _ slaughtered _ their way across battlefields.

What set them apart was that Byleth was, in her eyes, clean. Byleth had done her fair share of mourning even before the war had ended, and in the end, it changed her. Now Byleth devoted herself entirely to life. Untold thousands owed their lives to the tireless efforts of the Minister of Welfare.

But Edelgard would never be clean. The blood had sunk into her skin, into her soul, as red as her regalia. Maybe she’d inherited Dimitri’s penchant for seeing things that weren’t there, along with his spectre. But she could see the blood on her hands. On her arms, her chest, her legs, her everything. It clung to her, as surely as her countless scars. No amount of water, no amount of scrubbing could dislodge it. And she was trying. Goddess, she was trying. The rags in her hands scrubbed and scrubbed, but all they dislodged was skin. Why wouldn’t it go away? Her skin burned as she scraped it raw, and she was panicking now, water sloshing over the side of the bathtub as she thrashed, and she could swear the water itself was running red, and-

“_El!” _

Arms wrapped tight around her, constricting her own. She felt a familiar heat, smelled a familiar smell, heard a familiar voice call out a familiar name._ She wasn’t worthy of this. _ She struggled against the embrace.

“Let me go! I’ll get the blood on you too! I’ll taint you, I’ll ruin you-”

“El.”

Despite all her hysteria, Byleth never let go of her, and she hadn’t the energy to keep it up. She fell still into the arms that held her, sobbing uncontrollably. Useless. 

“They won’t leave me alone.” Edelgard managed. “I killed them, and they’ll never leave me. I’ll never be clean again.”

Byleth hugged her tighter, as if she could overwhelm Edelgard’s demons just by squeezing her. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Edelgard watched, still, as Byleth released her and shifted her to the side of the tub. It was just large enough to fit both of them, and Byleth fit herself alongside Edelgard, still in her nightclothes. The water she dislodged sloshed over the side, and she payed no heed.

Byleth gathered Edelgard in her arms, taking the rag that she had been using moments ago, and began to press it ever so gently over Edelgard’s body. “Hush. Don’t look. Just close your eyes. Just feel me, nothing but me.”

And Edelgard did. She sank into the one place where she was safe. She felt the guilt-made-manifest slough from her skin everywhere Byleth reached. The idea that one person could hold all these horrors at bay was ridiculous. And yet, Byleth could. Hadn’t she shared in Edelgard’s horrors? And those she hadn’t, hadn’t she been there to listen, to hold Edelgard in place as she shook with the weight of the past?

Who else could free her from this?

The water was growing cold, and Edelgard noticed that Byleth had stopped scrubbing. Edelgard was simply lying in her wife’s arms, wrapped around her, her hands clasped tight over the large star-scar in the centre of her chest, as if protecting it. 

“We best get out, lest we catch cold.” Edelgard whispered.

Byleth’s arms went loose, and Edelgard turned just enough to see her, reaching out to touch the face of her saviour.

“Are you well?” Byleth asked, tentatively, clearly still worried.

“I am.” Edelgard responded. “Perhaps I should bathe with you more often. Although maybe next time you might wish to undress first.”

Byleth flushed. “Right. Sorry. It didn’t rank highly in my priorities at the time.”

Edelgard smiled, leaning over to plant a kiss on her wife’s forehead. “I know. Thank you. Now come on. I wish to dry my hair before bed, and _ somebody _ is going to need to find a mop.”

**Author's Note:**

> my fics for edeleth week have been too nice. i got drenched by a car with a trailer driving through a massive puddle this morning on my way to get my teeth fucked up by the dentist, and then I got home and got takeaway, cakes, and cuddles. which means it's time to pass that hurt/comfort onto you, the reader!


End file.
